Life Sciences Sector

Support Organisations

A whole array of support organisations are working together to help businesses in the Life Sciences sector thrive. Make Locate in Birmingham your first port of call and we can help you make the right connections:

C.H.I.D: Established to advise and support inventors with the ultimate aim of implementing new technologies and products for the benefit of the healthcare sector and equally importantly giving recognition and just rewards to the inventor.

Centech: The consortium is a biotechnology exploitation platform, which aims to identify and commercialise biotechnological innovations arising from partner establishments, the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust, the South Birmingham Primary Care Trust, Staffordshire University, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Trust, the University of Wolverhampton, and other local organisations.

Health Tech: Established to help the regional economy diversify and create new opportunities by assisting SME’s recognise and ultimately utilise existing skills in the medical / healthcare sector. It provides a mechanism for SME’s to access and commercialise medical/healthcare related IPR, encouraging transfer of technologies from the automotive and other traditional engineering sectors into the medical / bio engineering / pharmaceutical sectors.

I2 Nanotech Centre: Located at the University of Birmingham, this facility has been set up as the first phase of a vision to establish the West Midlands as a global force in the commercial exploitation of nanotechnology.

Medilink: This is a national network of regionally-based independent programmes working for the common goal of raising the profile of SME's in the medical and healthcare sectors in the United Kingdom.

Medilink West Midlands is a mutual organisation working for the benefit of its members, facilitating growth through business opportunities and diversification through technology transfer between universities, the National Health Service and industry. At the same time, Medilink West Midlands is also creating a Life Sciences observatory to benefit the region.

Midlands Medici: A consortium of Midlands universities including Birmingham and Aston have established a two year programme to foster a climate of entrepreneurship in universities, particularly in relation to research that has commercial applications.

With £2m of funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the consortium's first activity is to provide £20,000 bursaries for staff and students training in topics like technology audit techniques, market research and business plan development. Recipients will then go on to audit their departments for research that might be commercialised. The third part of the programme will be the development of a portfolio of exploitation plans for the most promising possibilities.

Medici is unusual in that it does not require participants to have embarked on a particular direction of research. "There is no intention of muscling in on work that is already going in an applied direction," says Christopher Thomas of the University of Birmingham's Biosciences Department. "Rather, it is to catalyse action that may not otherwise have taken place."

A number of the 25 fellows on the first scheme have already been appointed. Medici has the funding to run two programmes, after which it is hoped that the course will be self-funding.

NHS innovations MidTech: The intention of the Regional Innovation Hubs is to develop an innovation management service for NHS Trust, which identifies, protects, develops and exploits innovations and their associated intellectual property for the benefit of patient healthcare and the NHS.

The West Midlands Technology Network: The network has been created to provide the Midlands' premiere business community with a discussion forum for technology-related news, views, opportunities, knowledge and information. Driven and funded by its seven founder members, together with a growing portfolio of Associate Members, WMTN is committed to supporting the region's technology-related business and commercial activities.

WM MAS: Dedicated to helping manufacturers in the region improve any aspect of their manufacturing operations, processes, production or materials technologies.

For information on the region's research and development facilities, click here.

If you are unsure of who to contact, make Locate in Birmingham your first port of call and we will help you identify the best way forward.

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